Ian Williams on Iraq: "The War Isn't Present in the Media"

As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.

Ian Williams on Iraq: "The War Isn't Present in the Media"

By Marc Cooper

British-born author and journalist Ian Williams never flinched from opposing the war in Iraq in spite of his adamant opposition to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. While other writers were beating the drums of war, Williams warned that the White House was about to blunder into a catastrophe.

Williams' writing, which appears in publications ranging from The New York Observer to the Financial Times, can be found at his personal website. http://deadlinepundit.blogspot.com/ He's also a regular contributor to the online commentary of The Guardian.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Williams slams a constrained model of American journalism which he says "inhibits" reporters from seeing the real war in Iraq.

How difficult was it five years ago to see how badly things were going to turn out in Iraq?

It wasn't difficult at all. All of the signs and all of the information were evident. There were so many, at times, it was perplexing. I had seen the war coming for some time because the cumulative weight of the evidence was that the administration clearly wanted a war.

Once you accepted that as the basic premise, everything else was purely commentary. Was it about Saddam Hussein's behavior? Was it because he was a threat? Was it because of the oil? In the end, I don't think anyone has really answered those questions because none of it really makes sense.

The one thing that was making it certain, and I was very close to Hans Blix and his office at the time, was Saddam Hussein. If he in fact didn't have any weapons, why didn't he just didn't let the inspectors in more freely? It's the one thing that could have killed the momentum toward an actual invasion.

What about the media environment at the time prior to the invasion? It's easy to blame the media, but on the other hand, you certainly gleaned enough to understand the situation.

I think it was a case mostly of standing outside the herd of lemmings. It's not an exclusively American thing, but there is such a thing as a media consensus where things just become accepted wisdom. And of course official things become even more accepted wisdom.

So there you had the State Department, and both political parties - because there wasn't much opposition coming from what you might call the Democratic front benchers--and these were the sources of wisdom for many journalists.

They'll tell you that nothing really happens until someone says it on The Hill. And none of the major political figures were saying this whole thing was spurious. So most of the media just went along with the consensus. They didn't want to stand out like they were some sort of wild ultra-leftists or lunatics. The inexorability was being created in the media throughout this whole time.

You ascribe the media failings, then, to a lack of courage rather than some sort of ideological bias?

I think so. There were some cases that were ideological, certainly like that of Judith Miller. But mostly I think we are talking more about some sense of self-preservation. I know from personal experience, you don't get any medals for telling editors things they don't want to hear. And telling them something other newspapers aren't carrying.

Has this media environment shifted much over the last five years?

No. There's still a great deal of caution, not wanting to shock the sensibilities of their editors and their readers. I mean, look at the press in Britain. They are no paragons of virtue, but they are a lot less respectful to authority.

And don't forget, there's a complicating factor in Iraq. Saddam It was hard to draw the line. Even I am still being vilified by some because I was saying: "Look this war is coming. It's wrong. But don't be surprised if troops go in and find there are weapons of mass destruction there." A lot of people opposed to the war were taking an ideological
position that Saddam was a saint and that there couldn't be WMD because Bush said there was.

In my writing, I had to be very clear. That I was coming down on this issue on the hard facts and not because of any false sentiment for Saddam Hussein who, all things being equal, I was very happy to see go.

How do you evaluate the current reporting on Iraq, especially since the surge? Some critics argue that Iraq has just slipped from the front pages?

How can you report on a war when no American reporter dares to leave the comfort and security of an allied convoy or the Green Zone? You simply can't report on it. The second point is that given the conventionalities of American reporting, the only people who can report on this are Arabs and Iraqis and are therefore seen, ipso facto, as untrustworthy. They're the only ones who can talk to people on the ground. But they are used as stringers and sources only. You don't see their bylines. You don't see their analysis.

The continual inhibition of American reporting, the "just the facts" approach, means that you have op-eds written by people in complete ignorance of what's happening on the ground. And you have the news written by people on the ground who can't see what's happening at the next bus stop down the road and are inhibited professionally.

Compare this to the way The Guardian, Le Monde or the Financial Times would cover things, pulling it all together into a big picture, and you see the difference. There's something about the stricture of American J-School standards that makes that impossible.

So you think the European coverage five years ago about Iraq was much better than the American?

There was a lot more skepticism than in the U.S. press but at the same time there was also a disturbing amount of jingoism in the British press which was supporting the war. But also, some people who were supporting it were doing it on the same grounds, my sources tell me, that Tony Blair did. Blair wasn't worried about WMD. He only used that as the legal pretext to get UN cover. He was an active player in this, he wasn't dragged into this by George Bush. Blair wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein because he thought he was evil, and that this would be a sort of follow-up to Kosovo.

Which is a war you supported?

Yes, I did. Kosovo was good work but it was a one-time thing. You couldn't follow it up the way Blair wanted to Iraq. But there were a lot of commentators in the British press who were following Blair's line of thinking. Not the same exactly as Bush. The Never Again Crowd who thought it was payback time for Saddam Hussein.

Why is there such a weak anti-war movement in the U.S.?

This is war that happens to other people. You don't have the degree of casualties that you had in Vietnam. And if you have to face it - that the anti-Vietnam War protests were in large measure from people who didn't want to be drafted to be blown up in the jungle. It was not such altruistic concern about the Vietnamese getting bombs dropped on them.

Also, this administration has been very clever in manipulating the debate around the casualties. It's become sort of unpatriotic discuss them. The war is not present in the media because there's no way for American reporters to get out there and see what's happening to the Iraqis. That's the real war.

Comments

[sa]

this war was built on the premise
that it wasn't america's war,
but paid fighters
and it wouldn't touch "america."

the "all volunteer" army
was going to fight this thing out.
america wouldn't pay its toll -
only the poor bastards
who couldn't get a job in america.

once again,
it was a class war
and a republican war,
which all in all,
are the same.

but the war got ugly
and the military broke.
enter: blackwater.
("blackwater", chillingly is code for OIL.)

so rather than ask for a draft
to fight what was "clearly" an "american war",
bush blanched and hired fighters at a high premium.
fighters were making more per year than our military leaders.
and they were killing everyone in sight with impunity.

if bush dared to ask for a draft
the iraq war would shut down.
protestors would storm the whitehouse.
why - because THIS IS NOT, WAS NOT, AN "AMERICAN WAR"!!!

bush knew this and wisely
paid a fortune
to mercenary killers
than up the anty on america.

the war rages on,
but bush left america mollified
in that only the enlisted had to die
or get "sploded".

there is not enough protest
to overthrow this illegal war.
there is no draft - that is the KEY(!)
people sit at home or buy groceries on credit cards
and don't question shit.
this war is a fake. bush is a fake.
if this war was real, real people would be volunteering
and a draft would be on. it would be a countrywide engagement.
not just poor people killing poor people.

once again, bush dodged the draft.

[jbd]

The United States government is never going to allow the rise of a strong independent Arab/Muslim government. Since the CIA overthrough of the democratically elected government of Iran back in 1950's, and the installation of the Shah this has been plain to see. All Arab leaders or governments are bought off with arms deals or moneyto keep them fat and happy, to keep their people in line, and not buck the system.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, the fact that Saddam got his chemical weapons capability from deals with US companies was never brought up. Remember the Rumsfeld / Saddam handshake? The Iraqi's gassed the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war but all we heard about was the attacks on the Kurds. This was OK because Iran had rejected American control of thir country. All embassies have CIA personel in them, so when they took the embassy personel hostage, the Iranians were going after some of the people who had helped the Shah repress them.
If the US had put it's Army in between Isreal and the Palistinians, instead of into Iraq, the region would be much farther along the road to reluctant co-existance. This would have meant we would have had to address Isreal's continued settlment of land that is not part of their country. All the money we blew on Iraq could have been used to build new settlements in Isreal to house the settlers. Then the Palistinians could have been given their country.The fact that Jerulselum has been fought over for thousands of years, and Isreal is insisting on controlling the city defies reality. It will be a constant thorn in the side of the Muslim world.
If the US would give equal weight to the arguements on both sides there might be a chance for the end of this nightmare. There would still be the fanatic zealot terrorists on both sides, but the support for them would dry up if the bulk of the populations could see that they are finally starting to put this long conflict behind them. We will never see these points discussed on the talking head shows. When you realize that the US military is the largest single consumer of oil in the world, the whole thing becomes a self fufilling prophecy.

[bogananda666]

Good comments, thanks. Remember Israel receives $500 per year for each Israeli in US aid and this has been the case for decades with commitments to continue for the next 10 years.Some US residents will receive a one time so called tax stimulus check this year of $300.

[ron071]

Why are there Americn reporters in Iraq if they cannot report n the situation there? Why are Iraqi sources ignored as unreliable when they can be checked against other sources to get the facts from several others? It seems that the question runs deeper than this excuse.

Check your local or national newspaper and you will find any factual information buried well into the paper and surely to not be noticed bymany readers. Why not on the front page? It seems that the question runs deeper than this excuse.

Only the publishers and editors have the answer to what is covered by our " free press."

[bogananda666]

I was watching Winter Soldier on Free Speech TV this weekend and a service member said that when their were embedded reporters that the troops toned down the level of violence against Iraqi's and when reporters were absent war crimes and atrocities were rampant. Very telling since it means that the troops in Iraq make conscious decisions to be war criminals and proceed to do criminal acts knowing full well that they are war criminals. Somehow, I don't think this was the Pentagon's purpose for the reporters, to deter war crimes. This has changed my mind about the embedded reports as imperfect as it is at least it has prevented war crimes although inadvertently.

[rbenjamin]

Ian Williams is on the mark, but perhaps a bit too reserved.

The American news media has evolved primarily into a mechanism for quickly distributing press releases from centers of political and economic power. Advertising. CNN and similar 24-7 cable TV news loops are especially effective in this role. The CNN model is inexpensive, flashy and draws viewers, but it’s terrible at examining complex issues. Serious journalism is still anchored to print media that are in steady decline and consolidation.

The Bush Administration’s intent to forcibly depose Hussein was clear before the 2000 election. The American Press (of all varieties) uncritically floated NeoCon trial balloons to that effect that successfully built a base of public acquiescence for war. The destruction of the World Trade Center was initially a distraction for the Bush administration, but they quickly found they could control the news about this event to foster and exploit a climate of fear. This fear was skillfully redirected towards a non-involved party – Iraq. This “big lie” remains a deeply embedded public justification for the war. Come September we Americans will be voting about a myth.

It’s hard to believe that Government secrecy and the effective suspension of Constitutional Rights hasn’t played a critical role in stifling dissenting press coverage. The government is reading our E-mail and listening to our phone calls. How widely and how effectively is not clear. What is clear is that our government operates a Gulag in Cuba and probably a lot of other locations as well. It tortures people. It detains foreign people (and sometimes newly minted Americans) without trial and even without probable cause. Every reporter has got to think: “just how far will these guys go?”

[Durango]

So I get an explanation why I have NEVER seen an Arab or Afghani reporter on a major news program. They are "ipso facto untrustworthy."

Can we spell RACISM anyone?

How in Hell are we ever supposed to understand a region of the world where we are wasting our lives and our treasure when we can't even hear from the people who live there?

So in order to report on crime in a city like say Baltimore (yes I have been watching the Wire) we rely on people from another country who fly into the city, don't speak the language, have at best a vague understanding of the social, political or historical context to tell us what's happening?

Instead of people who live there.

Is it possible for our media to be any more lame than that? And does it rise to the level of criminal culpability?

[Clinton]

Perhaps war is the new America export industry. Given the silence of the news media as well as the American public, this could be just the beginning of a long, openly (though quietly) embrace of arms commerce and suppression of freedom in the interests of multi-national corporations. It has prven to be quite easy to silence the Americas electorate through fear. Now that they are out of the way, anything goes.

[Clinton]

please excuse the grammar/spelling

[realpolitic]

Bush loves war. Spelling excused!

[jbd]

The starting point for this fiasco (has Lieberman read this book) in my opinion, is the still secret meeting of Dick Cheney and the energy companies that took place at the start of the Bush administration. As recently revealed by Douglas Feith, Bush/Cheney was going to war from the get go, and the inspections were to be ignored. I knew we had lost the war when the news started to show all the forced entries and round ups of Iraqi's. Hooding the men, many of whom were guilty of nothing, and carting them off for interrogation was only going to fuel the resistance. Any American, who had an Army of occupation in their country, would be resisting the occupation. When you throw in the three major ethnic and religious divides of Iraq what were we thinking? Five years later the government is still holed up in the Emerald City of Bagdahd. Now that our bancruptcy is starting to come into play things are going to really become critical. I still think that the Biden plan for three partitioned states is our only solution. Getting the Shiites and Kurds to share the oil revenue will be the key.

[Clinton]

Perhaps Iraq is just a rehearsal. One could envision an Emerald City in the US, should the citizens get too far out of line. But we do have television and the press to keep us pacified. I wonder if anyone has explored using television as a way to numb the brains of the insurgents. First step would be to get enough infrastructure, then let the hypnosis begin. So far this looks like a big laboratory to explore the limitations of corporate pacification of a large population.

[realpolitic]

Yes, just beam them Fox News and they would be under our spell.

[MikeMidCity]

Like momma always said, "If you can't say anything good to say about a war, don't say anything at all."

The main stream media is owned by the very same people who are making money off it. DUH!

[bogananda666]

What war, you mean there's a war somewhere? Where" Why or how didn't I know about this, I watch the MSM 24/7.

[realpolitic]

As he said, American reporters are too respectful of authority, too timid in the face of being called unpatriotic or just called biased, and too remote from what is going on on the ground in Iraq. If journalists can not hold the Bush administration accountable, which must be one of the most lying, constitution trampling, law breaking administrations in history, the press will never hold any authority accountable. This administration makes Nixon and Watergate look like Sunday school.

[Clinton]

Investigative reporting seems to have been effectively squelched. This may be the result of the press being co-opted by the people who run the country.

[realpolitic]

Yes, James Risen, an investigative journalist, may be sent to jail if he does not reveal his sources in the CIA after he wrote about Bush wanting to attack Iran. Bush wants to close all leaks and have no transparency, while tap dancing and mugging for the cameras.

[kfdan]

"Compare this to the way The Guardian, Le Monde or the Financial Times would cover things, pulling it all together into a big picture, and you see the difference. There's something about the stricture of American J-School standards that makes that impossible."

Basically, I pay attention to media reports that do not come out of the U.S.. The simple fact is that American journalist working for mainstream media are tame, lame and generally worried about getting ahead! It's really too bad that great American journalist do not get coverage ~ Greg Palast for example.
The corporate media ownership being limited at this point to 5 or 6 large mother companies with interest to protect are the problem!

[jdbid1]

With McCain going to Irag it will soon be a front page news story for the media darling telling us how great things are going with the surge and that we must stay there until the job is done. Then we will see the footage in campaign ads showing this great Amereican hero gripping and grinning with his friends, the troops, and playing the role of Commander-in-Chief. Obama and Clinton need to interrupt their campaigns and get their butts over there to counteract what will soon be the news for weeks to come.

[realpolitic]

Yes, he talked about his stroll in a marketplace before, but forgot to mention the three Apache helicopters flying overhead.

[MikeMidCity]

Oh he said something about them, you just couldn't hear it over the noise that these three helicopters overhead were making.

My friends, we are now in a thousand year war to spread freedom and free markets.

[bumpersticker]

Hubris has a nasty way of turning into boredom.

This hubris has also turned into a nasty financial yoke that our, and future generations will carry (as is now unfolding.) The Piper Cometh.

The Surge focused on Baghdad to get Iraq out of the news. By that measure of illusion it has succeeded.

[sittingcow]

Oh you American PEOPLE !

What is right with you ?

Please revisit that glorious chapter in your your history called My Lai massacre.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23651088/

What we have done in Iraq makes My Lai look like a picnic. And yet there is no outrage. CNN shows cheerful sunny flower-strewn commercials promoting prescription drugs and all is right with world (Robert Browing is spinning in his grave). Yes that is what we need - more of Lipitor, Viagra, Advair et al.

The surge is "working". But one must admire the US patience, generosity and mercy. They have still not done a Hiroshima there. But that makes sense - doing that will evaporate the oil we are after.

[Merlin7]

Memo from: deputy asst. CNN news producer
To: CNN Big Cheese Board

Please pay no attention to Marc Cooper's blog on HuffPo. Sure the war is in the media. CNN reports on it every day, telling us everything is going just swell. Kyra Phillips can be counted on to give a nice cheerful intro to those Pentagon-produced features we run about the happy Iraqis enjoying the blessings of democracy. And it's great that you guys transferred those Iraq bureau reporters who kept saying, like, negative things about the war and upsetting the network's advertisers who, like, make lots of weapons and stuff. I'm sure glad that Baghdad is under control now that the insurgents are on the U.S.-Saudi payroll, Iran is effectively running the country and CNN is putting a happy face on everything again like we did back in the good old days of 2003. I'll bet that if the next presidential administration tries really hard it can make the war in Afghanistan last even longer than the war in Iraq, with lots of profits to be had all around -- well, profits for those folks who count, anyway.
P.S. We plan a new series on the U.S. economy for next week in which we will reassure our viewers that everything is going just swell -- and to ignore everything they're hearing to the contrary.

[realpolitic]

Yes, what happened to the Australian reporter Michael Ware. He was great, but sometimes pessimistic, so I guess he had to go to make room for more happy talk. Conservatives were beginning to complain about him. It is easier to sell products when all the news is so cheerful.

[bogananda666]

Of course, you're absolutely correct about CNN reporting on the war. It does so daily at 4 AM.